Moving Units celebrate rise of dance-punk in their hometown

As the days count down to 2015, it’s sometimes easy to forget that the early 2000s marked a seminal time in the evolution of rock ‘n’ roll. But for fans of dance-punk, a subgenre that fuses punk rock, new wave and disco all into one cohesive sound, there may have been no bigger year than 2004.

A year after the Yeah Yeah Yeahs broke into the scene with their first full-length record, the Grammy-nominated Fever to Tell, dance-punk exploded into mainstream pop culture as young, emerging bands like !!!, Liars and Death from Above 1979 all released albums to predominantly positive reviews.

Yet, that same year, there was another dance-punk outfit — a much-lesser-known one by way of Los Angeles — that was also leaving an imprint on the dance-rock landscape.

Moving Units, a four-piece fronted by lead singer and guitarist Blake Miller, would end up playing a key role in the post-millennium renaissance of dance-punk thanks to their 2004 debut Dangerous Dreams.

The album, which embodies the dance-punk spirit as well as any studio recording to this day, would eventually find its way into more traditional media, including a television spot in 2007 for the deodorant brand Secret. But for those who were already fans of Moving Units, TV commercials weren’t necessary to justify the respect and admiration they had for Dangerous Dreams.

So, when the band announced that it would be celebrating the 10th anniversary of Dangerous Dreams by performing the album in its entirety, there were plenty of Angelinos who knew where they would be on the evening of December 5.

At the El Rey Theatre, Moving Units did exactly what they said they would, playing the 12-track LP from start to finish, as Miller let it all hang out, leaning into the microphone to deliver his lyrics with passion and force. The songs may have been more than a decade old, but you would have never known by how tight the band sounded.

For their encore, Miller and his three sidekicks — bassist Mike Delgado, lead guitarist Boz Bosgieter and drummer Danny Deleon — dipped even deeper into their catalog, going back to the start of it all by playing three songs from Moving Units’ self-titled EP. It was a nice surprise to see, considering the group dropped its third full-length Neurotic Exotic just a little more than a year ago.

Because these days, in this go-go-go world we find ourselves living in, it’s OK for a band to celebrate the past once in a while.